The Reaper of Beacon
by ShatterThisHeart
Summary: On this day of Halloween, horror stories are spun and ghouls lurk in the shadows. But in Beacon, there is one creature that will forever haunt its halls…


Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY

Complete revamp, minus Weiss's story.

* * *

_All four members of team RWBY are on their way home from the Halloween party, in which Ozpin made people bob for apples in a pool of coffee, Port conducted a terrible sock puppet show about Grimm, and Goodwitch tried saving the day by offering pumpkins to carve. That turned into a pumpkin-gut flinging showdown among every single team._

_Now, Yang is laughing, slinging leftover pumpkin guts at Weiss, who rolls her eyes. The latter doesn't even care anymore, as her whole body is thoroughly coated in the slimy orange substance. "Ah, come on, Weiss-y," the blonde teases, a wicked smirk growing on her face. "I thought you liked getting down and dirty." _

_Weiss huffs, glaring at her. "You are _so _disgusting," she mutters, crossing her arms. Then, hearing the squishing sound it produces, winces and drops her arms back to her sides. _

_Yang grins at her. "I love you too," she mock-coos, making a kissy face at her. Weiss promptly hurls a lob of pumpkin at her face. "Hey!" _

_Blake decides that now would be a good time to intervene, before all this gets out of hand. "Can we please hurry to the dorm? I'd like to wash this food off me." _

_Ruby quickly agrees, having a strong dismay for Weiss and Yang's fights. Unless, of course, it's one of their daily squabbles; that can't be helped. "Yeah! Let's hurry, because I'm afraid that this stuff is going to harden on me." _

_Weiss nods, but she seems contemplative, looking up at the ceiling in thought. "Can that even happen...?" _

_They're just rounding the corner, about to enter the hallway that contains their dorm room, when a low growl sounds. Weiss sighs with an exasperated roll of her eyes. "Yang, are you honestly hungry already?" _

_Blake and Ruby glance at the blonde, but she only looks confused. "That wasn't me," she says, slowly, checking all three of her friends. Each of them, realizing what the growl could mean, are slow to shake their heads. _

_Ruby gulps, eyes darting around in paranoia. "You...You don't think..." _

_Yang tries to laugh it off, but her nervousness is obvious. "N—no, no way." _

_Blake's nod is feeble—shockingly, she's scared too. Weiss scoffs, but even her act is see-through. "Of course not!" _

_Another growl echoes through the hall. Ruby screams, jumping onto the person nearest her, which happens to be Weiss. The ivory-haired girl stumbles, but she immediately clings onto Ruby too. Blake reaches for Gambol Shroud, but then she remembers that she left her weapon in the dorm. Crescent Rose, Myrtenaster, and Ember Celica are also in the dorm. Why hadn't they brought them again? Oh, yes. Ozpin said no weapons because he didn't want anyone drunk or mad or both to go on a "perfectly Halloween-themed killing spree." Curse him. _

_Yang swallows, hard. "I...don't suppose that's a cute little puppy?" She half-calls, voice faint. Her answer is a fearsome, much louder growl. _

_Ruby screams again. "Run!" She peels herself off Weiss and disappears in a blur of roses. Weiss, even without Myrtenaster, summons one of her glyphs and speeds down the hall. Blake is quick to follow, but Yang is left behind. Why? Because she sees it. _

_All she manages to shriek is, "We should've listened to Nora!" And then, she's gone. _

_Blake whirls around. "Yang!" She shouts, but there's no answer. Her heart stops. "Yang...? Yang!" She starts running toward the dorm hall where she left her. _

_Of course this would happen. Why hadn't they believed Nora? Ah, that's right. Because her story was so freakin' ridiculous, they couldn't be bothered to believe it. _

_Last Halloween, in their first year at Beacon, Nora had been walking through the halls alone, on her way back to her dorm. Normally, Ren would be with her, but he got sick from accidentally drinking spiked soda, so she was alone. _

_Nora was almost at her dorm when she heard a noise. Curious, she turned around to investigate. What she found, according to her description, was a tall, shadowy figure, holding a scythe. She claimed he was the Grim Reaper, preparing to reap her soul, but she had been too fast and flew into her dorm. She said he never showed up after that, but insisted that he was real. No one believed her. _

_Now, Blake skids around the corner, only to stop dead in her tracks, eyes wide. She stares up at the exact replica of Nora's description and is horrified when the thing takes off his hood, revealing a bone-white face, eyes sunken, cheeks hollow. It smiles gruesomely, showing off several missing teeth, blood dripping out of its mouth. _

_She does something she hasn't done for a long time—she screams. Loud, long, and terrified, as she's petrified in place._

_The scream is abruptly cut short, Blake disappearing in a wisp of black smoke. _

_Weiss hears her scream and looks ahead. Ruby is nowhere in sight. She's torn between going back for Blake, and if she's already gone, acting in vengeance, or continuing on her way. She remembers her promise to be the best teammate ever, and her will solidifies. She turns around and races back. _

_She whips around a corner and crashes into something rock-hard and solid. Wondering if she misjudged it and crashed into a wall, she looks up. What she sees is _not _a wall. _

_She screams and spins on her heel, sprinting down the hall. When she careens around a corner, she looks back and catches sight of the Reaper moving across the floor, slowly but surely. That only serves to terrify her more. _

_She's about to reach an elevator and is just pressing the button when there's a sudden disturbance of air behind her. She explodes into slivers of bright white light. The Reaper collects her soul in his black cloak and continues on his way. One more. _

_Ruby doesn't hear anyone behind her. She whirls around, only seeing an empty hallway. Fear begins to creep inside her soul. "Guys? I told you to run..." She trails off, realizing that no one can hear her. They're all...gone. _

_She starts to cry and turns around, stumbling as she attempts to run again. She shouldn't have left them behind. She's the team leader, for the love of God; her team should come before herself. This is why she never should have been named team leader...she's too young. _

_She's about to round a corner when a chill runs up her spine. She stops dead in her tracks and slowly turns around. And she sees it/him. The Grim Reaper of Beacon. A spirit out for vengeance on those who turned their backs on him. His face is the most terrifying thing about him, despite his wickedly sharp scythe, and she has to stifle a scream at the sight of it. _

_She backs away slowly, and he moves forward, brandishing his scythe. "You have a scythe, too?" She asks, nervously, though she isn't sure why she's talking to him. "C—cool. So do I. Mine is, um, Crescent Rose. What's yours?" _

_Her answer is a low growl. She gulps. "Er, never mind. None of my business. Now, if you don't mind, I think—" And then she's running, roses spinning around her as her aura spikes. _

_The thing is, no one ever outruns the Reaper of Beacon. Not even a girl with virtual super speed. And that's why, when she's reaching for the handle on the door to the service stairs, she bursts into tendrils of red light, instantly absorbed into his cloak. _

_The job is done. Hallow's Eve is over for him. Four powerful girls are more than enough to sustain him until next year. _

_And long after he's already gone, the others at Beacon finally notice the absence of team RWBY. They will search for months, but there will be no trace of a kidnapping or murder. It's almost as if they simply...vanished. _

_Decades later, their names will live on in the lore of Beacon. Team RWBY will not be known as heroes, or even just simple students. _

_They will be known as ghosts. _

"Well?"

They're speechless. Absolutely speechless. In fact, they're so speechless that even the storyteller gets worried, and usually, she would enjoy the silence. "Um...can one of you say something?"

"That...That was terrifying!" Ruby explodes, still not relinquishing her grip on her sister's arm. "Why would you tell a story that scary?! When you started, with all the fun stuff, I thought this was going to be a happy story!" Her voice rises with each punctuation mark, eventually coming to a high-pitched wail.

Yang winces, since she's sitting right next to the distressed girl. "It wasn't so...scary..." Then, remembering the storyteller's voice, how she changed the tone of it and scaled pitches and lowered them to whispers, she shrivels. "Oh, God, that was so scary," she whispers, clinging to her little sister. "The Reaper gave me the creeps. And his face...And your voice..." She shivers.

"I must admit...I was terrified, too. How did you spin that story, Weiss?" Blake asks, hugging her knees to her chest. Her bow is off, and her ears are flat against her head in fear. Weiss must be a good storyteller if she's able to unnerve even Blake.

The heiress, surprisingly, doesn't look pleased at their reaction. Most storytellers would be thrilled to have been able to get that response from their audience. "I...Well, I've actually told it before, except I fitted it to my audience then. I think I was..." She trails off, tapping a finger to her chin in thought. "Eleven, I guess? Anyway, my cousins, who had been visiting, were annoying me, and Halloween was upon us, so I formulated the most terrifying story I could think of. Afterward, I remember hearing them ask their mother if they could sleep with her. My cousins were twelve and fourteen."

The other three girls exchange surprised glances. While they do, Weiss guiltily folds her hands in her lap. "I'm sorry if I scared you," she apologizes, drawing their attention to her. "I just thought...that since you guys wanted a scary story for Halloween, I'd tell the scariest one I had. It's really not all that great," she mutters with a frown.

"Are you kidding?" Yang exclaims, punching the air in excitement. Interesting how quickly her mood can change. "That was the best scary story I've ever heard! I wanna know more! What happened to make that guy so bitter? Why didn't we just go inside a dorm like Nora? What happened to our souls? Were we stuck there forever?"

Blake looks at Yang approvingly. "Those are all good questions." The blonde grins, brightly.

Weiss furrows her brow, uncertain. "Um...well, the Reaper was bitter because all of the students at Beacon, even his own teammates, didn't like him. When his team was ambushed by Grimm, his teammates left him to fend for himself. He took down several Grimm before finally succumbing to the inevitable. Afterward, he came back to haunt Beacon. According to lore, his complexion is white because of death, and his eyes and cheeks are sunken because of only being able to feed off the souls of noble warriors once a year. That's also part of the reason why he haunts this place."

Ruby shivers, trying to cuddle closer to Yang. The blonde puts her arm around her adorable little sister. "He just gets scarier and scarier," the redhead whispers.

Yang nods, a little pale from the gore of the Reaper. "So, uh...Why didn't we just hide in a dorm?"

Weiss shrugs. "We were in fight or flight mode. It never crossed our minds, and if it did, we were too terrified to think properly and form a plan."

"Oh. And our souls?"

The white-haired girl frowns. "Our souls? They were absorbed into his cloak. He fed off the energy from them until the next year, when he scouted out new victims. After the year was over, our souls were released, and we wandered endlessly, no longer having a home. That's what happens to the souls he releases."

Yang gulps, eyes widening in fear at the thought of being an endless wanderer, looking for a home she'll never find. "That's...cruel."

She shrugs again. "It's what would happen."

Blake casts her a look full of incredulity. "You formulated this story when you were eleven?"

Weiss nods in confirmation, crossing her arms and leaning against her bed. "Yes. Well, the basic ideas, like the Reaper, but I filled in some holes over the years. This story always sticks with me for some reason, and I just wanted to make it full and complete."

Blake lapses into silence, seemingly thoughtful, though most people couldn't tell. Ruby decides to ask something she's curious about. "So...what did you tell your two cousins? It obviously wasn't the story you just told..."

Weiss waves a hand, dismissively. "Oh, that? I told them that a Reaper roamed the halls of our family's mansion, waiting for the right time to reap the souls of any trespasser. In other words, any visitor. That scared the hell out of them."

Yang snickers.

"So, what now?" Ruby questions, tone full of boredom. She fiddles with her red cloak, rolling the heel of her bare foot on the ground. "We heard the scariest story ever, and we already ate candy," she points out, gesturing to the pile of candy she weaseled out of a few cafeteria ladies. "What else is there to do?"

Yang flops onto her back, staring up at the ceiling lazily. "Dunno," she shrugs. "Pumpkins are out of the equation, since _someone_," her head shoots up as she directs a glare at a blank-faced Weiss, "didn't want to carve pumpkins and gave them to the cooks."

Weiss's smirk is annoyingly smug. "I'm sure that they'll make excellent pumpkin pies." This earns a scowl from Yang, who obviously had some idea of what she'd wanted to carve.

"Well," Blake says, interrupting the two quarreling girls, "perhaps we should just sleep already. There isn't a rule that says we need to stay up past midnight on Halloween." Of course, this is a veiled point made toward her partner, who wants to stay up till midnight despite it being a weekday.

Yang groans from her position on the floor, crossing her arms. "Why are you guys all against me?"

Not wanting her sister to feel so down on one of her favorite holidays, Ruby quickly says, "I'm not! We can stay up all night!"

Yang immediately perks up, scrambling toward her sister to give her a giant hug and a peck on the head. "You're the best!" She declares with a wide smile. Ruby giggles, hugging her sister.

Weiss and Blake exchange exasperated glances before they both rise to their feet. "We're going to turn in," Blake tells the sisters, but they're too busy discussing what to do all night. The black-haired girl sighs.

Weiss remembers something from earlier. "Oh, Blake? Could we visit the library first? I just remembered that I wanted to pick up a book. You don't mind going, do you?"

Blake checks the time. The library should still be open for an hour or so for the late night students. She nods. "It's fine. I'll go with you to the library. I wanted to look for a book anyway."

Weiss smiles, and the two girls walk out of the dorm room, leaving their chattering teammates behind. They traverse the halls, the silence between them comfortable.

A noise sends their senses on alert. They glance behind them since it had come from that direction. When they see nothing, they turn to each other and shrug, but there's something uneasy in the air now.

They quickly reach the library, admittedly a bit unnerved by the sound from earlier. The librarian, strangely enough, is not at the counter, and there is a lack of students present that further serves to shake the girls.

Blake disappears into the dimly lit back aisles while Weiss stays near the front. She scans the shelves of books for the book she had in mind.

A shuffle behind her disturbs her concentration. Dismissing it as another student entering the library, she refocuses and continues her search.

A minute later, while she's checking a different shelf for the book, a horrid stench pervades her senses. It smells like a cross between human decay and mold rot. And, yes, she does know what that smells like.

She whirls on her heel, ready to confront whoever is ruining the air, but as soon as she sees the figure, she freezes up. All she whispers is a hoarse, "No..."

Somewhere in the back aisles, Blake procures her book and smiles to herself before turning around and walking toward the front. She expects to see Weiss waiting for her, but the heiress is nowhere in sight. Puzzled, she does a quick sweep of the library before finally finding her at a shelf in the far end of the library.

Letting out a quiet breath of relief, Blake says, jokingly, "Oh, thank God. I was afraid the Reaper had found you." Oddly, there is no response for Weiss. Figuring that she's engrossed in her book, she reaches forward and places her hand on her shoulder, turning her around.

The next set of events happens very quickly. Weiss spins around, but she holds no book. Her eyes are rolled into the back of her head, and after she turns around, she slumps to the ground. Blake screams and leaps away from the dead girl. Weiss falls onto her side, revealing a gash on her front. It's not large enough to kill her, but to Blake's horror, she realizes it was made so that the blood could serve as paint. On the floor directly behind Weiss are the words "Look behind you" scrawled in her blood.

Then she smells it. Something that makes her want to throw up as she gags, covering her mouth and nose. It smells like the library suddenly turned into a dug-up graveyard.

Blake's first instinct is to flee, but there is only a wall in front of her. She has no choice but to turn around. The hooded figure behind her strikes fear into her heart. "You..."

Ruby and Yang are completely unaware of the events that happened in the library, but for some reason, they feel uneasy. They exchange glances, and through some sort of sisterly telepathic communication, they agree to head down to the library to check on their teammates.

"It's probably nothing," Yang points out as they wait in the elevator. Ruby nods, but the troubled expression on her face doesn't ease up. She knows that her sister is most likely right; after all, what could possibly go wrong in a library?

They exit the elevator and make their way toward the library. As soon as they enter, they immediately notice that something is wrong. The librarian is gone and no one is here. The library is still open, according to the sign with the hours on it. In a strange twist, the library, instead of smelling like dusty old tomes, smells like alcohol, as if someone had freshly disinfected something.

Yang tries to shake off her nerves. "Come on, Ruby," she says to the increasingly scared girl. "Let's hurry up and find Blake and Weiss." The blonde leads the way through the library.

They search through the whole library but find no trace of their teammates. Arriving at the entrance again, Yang scratches her head in confusion. "Maybe they left already?" She wonders, glancing around one last time.

From some distance, both girls distinctly hear voices call, "Yang? Ruby? Where are you?"

They recognize the voices as Blake's and Weiss's. Sharing a relieved smile, they hurry out of the library and toward the source of the voices.

"Over here!" Ruby shouts, elated to hear her teammates' voices. Beside her, Yang laughs, shaking her head. They were scared for nothing.

Weiss calls back, her voice relieved. "Oh, good! We went back to the dorm and saw that both of you were missing! Come here!"

Ruby laughs. "Coming!" She cheers, sprinting toward them, Yang hot on her heels. They arrive in the auditorium where Ozpin first addressed the new and old students of Beacon at the start of the year.

"There you guys are!" Blake's voice says, in an oddly bright tone. Dismissing it, Ruby and Yang look for her in the dark.

"Where are you?"

"Right here!"

"Right where?"

"Behind you, silly!"

_Silly?_ Both Ruby and Yang wonder, but they turn around. Neither Blake nor Weiss are standing there, but they are aware of an overwhelming presence with an equally overwhelming stench.

"That's…not Blake…" Ruby whispers, meekly, straining to see the shape in the darkness. Yang puts herself in front of her little sister and tries to glare menacingly at the figure. But both girls have a sinking feeling in their guts, not wanting to accept what they already know to be true.

"Who are you and where are our friends?" She growls, activating Ember Celica. A deep chuckle reverberates throughout the auditorium, sending chills down their spines.

"Don't you know already?" The mysterious person rasps, voice dry and cracked. "That pretty heiress told you my story, didn't she?"

There's no time to scream, attack, or do anything to help their situation. The only thing they can do is widen their eyes as a wicked scythe flashes in the dark, emitting its own glow.

Rumor has it, on the night of Halloween, one can still hear the four girls of team RWBY calling out to each other, hopelessly trying to reunite.

* * *

**A reviewer was kind enough to point out the major flaws in the first version of this story, like its lack of coherence. I readily agree with that; looking back, it was, quite simply, terrible in its second half. I suppose that's why I need someone to look over my stories, but sadly, I don't have anyone to do that. Also, I'll wait longer next time before deciding to post. Two days isn't nearly enough time. **

**Anyway, boo-hoo me, blah, blah, blah. Onto the important stuff.**

**Weiss's story was set in the second year, but it was actually told in their first year at Beacon. It's up to you, the reader, to decide if Weiss knew that the Reaper actually existed, or if she had no idea. **

**To address the issue of both Weiss and Blake being dead but somehow calling out to Ruby and Yang, I offer this explanation: Like Weiss's story, they were absorbed in his cloak. They were scared, unsure of where they were, and wanted the reassurance of their whole team, so the Reaper opened his cloak so that their cries could lead the other two girls to him. When they saw them, they were relieved, which was why Blake was uncharacteristically bright. The Reaper closed his cloak after Blake said, "Behind you, silly!"**

**Leave a review or PM if you have any questions. If you hated it, that's great. At least I made you feel something. If you liked it, also great. Maybe I'll post something else much later.**


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